Alnwick Castle (ship)
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The Alnwick Castle , named after the palace complex in Northumberland , was a passenger steamer put into service in 1901, which was used by the British shipping company Union-Castle Line for passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and South Africa . The ship was sunk on March 19, 1917 in the North Atlantic by the German submarine U 81 by torpedo fire. All 139 people on board were able to save themselves, but during the days of drifting on the open ocean, 40 boat occupants died of hunger, thirst and exhaustion.
The ship
The 5,893-ton steamer Alnwick Castle was by the newly formed shipping company Union-Castle Line, based in London commissioned and in Govan in Glasgow on the shipyard William Beardmore and Company built. It was the first in a series of new passenger and freight express steamers designed to benefit from the immigration flows that began in South Africa after the end of the Boer War . Her sister ship was the Berwick Castle (5,883 GRT, 1902), which was launched three months later as the Alnwick Castle at William Beardmore.
The 122.04 meter long and 15.3 meter wide Alnwick Castle had a maximum draft of 8.17 meters and was equipped with two triple expansion steam engines that developed 475 hp (3,400 PSi ) and a top speed of 14 knots (25.9 km / h). The ship had a chimney and two masts . On board there was space for 12 passengers in the first, 29 in the second and 42 in the third class.
The Alnwick Castle was launched on September 27, 1901 and was completed in December 1901. The Union-Castle Line used them primarily for passenger traffic on the South African west coast and to Mauritius . On September 26, 1914, the steamer was requested as a troop transport . In March 1915, Alnwick Castle brought men of the Royal Naval Division to the Dardanelles , where they fought in the Battle of Gallipoli . On June 16, 1916, the Alnwick Castle was returned to its shipping company and returned to civilian passenger traffic.
Sinking
The submarine attack
On Saturday, March 17, 1917, the Alnwick Castle in Plymouth ran with 100 crew members, 14 passengers and mixed cargo for a trip to Cape Town . The command had Captain Benjamin Chave (1870-1954), who had started his training on sailing ships and had previously commanded several other ships of the Union-Castle Line and its predecessor shipping companies . Among the passengers was a woman with a four-month-old toddler.
On March 18, the ship met the lifeboats of the small British coal necklace Trevose of the Hain Steamship Company from St. Ives , which had recently been sunk by the German submarine U 81 (Oberleutnant zur See Raimund Weisbach). Two of the 27 crew members were killed. The other 25 were taken on board the Alnwick Castle . A total of 139 people were now on board the ship.
This week, German submarines were particularly active and sank a total of 55 ships. The captain of the Trevose reported to the crew of Alnwick Castle that during the time in the boats he had seen another ship explode nearby. At 6.10 a.m. the following morning, March 19, a lookout post in the crow's nest discovered that a torpedo was approaching the ship at right angles on the port side . The Alnwick Castle was at that time 310 miles south-west of Bishop Rock . It was about the same time to the southern Irish coast and Cape Finisterre . The first officer ordered “hard starboard” and “full power back”, but before the ship swung around the torpedo struck the port side. The force of the explosion threw columns of water and debris on the bridge and tore several hatches from their holders.
Since the Alnwick Castle began to sink quickly over the bow , Captain Chave ordered the ship to leave and also had emergency calls made , which went unanswered. All 139 people on board the ship were able to leave it safely in six lifeboats within a short time . The occupants of the boats kept a safe distance from the sinking ship and watched the last moments. About ten minutes after the attack, the Alnwick Castle sank bow first at coordinates 47 ° 38 ' N , 13 ° 24' W , her ship's whistle giving a final signal and another cloud of debris shooting up.
The lifeboats
The torpedo had been shot down by the U 81 , the same submarine that had sunk the Trevose the day before . The submarine remained submerged under the surface of the water during the sinking and then picked up speed again, as another steamer had been sighted about four miles away. Shortly afterwards, the survivors of Alnwick Castle heard an explosion nearby and saw a column of water rising on the horizon.
The six lifeboats were in the middle of the North Atlantic far from any country. Captain Chave set a north-easterly course to reach the mouth of the English Channel and to cross busy shipping lanes. The boats were tied together in a line and set sail. In the first night there were strong winds and a very rough sea with high waves, so that the sails had to be lowered again.
The next morning the lifeboats were widely scattered; two of them disappeared without a trace and were never seen again. In the days that followed, hunger, thirst, cold, exhaustion and the waves lapping against the boats reduced the number of survivors. Five days after the sinking, the captain's lifeboat was discovered 200 miles from the sinking site of Alnwick Castle in the Bay of Biscay by the steamer Venezia of the French Fabre Line . Five of the 29 inmates had died in the meantime. The first officer's lifeboat, which initially had 31 people on board, was only discovered by two fishing boats on the coast of Galicia a week after the sinking, on March 26th . The boats picked up the 20 inmates who were still alive and brought them to Carino, a small fishing village on Cabo Ortegal . Eleven boat occupants had died, but the woman with the baby and the ship's stewardess had survived.
A total of 40 people, including three crew members of the Trevose , were killed in the lifeboats of Alnwick Castle . The survivors praised the officers for their discipline and for taking all possible measures to get the castaways ashore. In 1921, Captain Chave was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), the second stage of the British Order of the British Empire , and was henceforth allowed to be addressed as Sir.